Geopolitics of the Knowledge-Based Economy

Abstract

We live in the era of the knowledge-based economy, and this has major implications for the ways in which states, cities and even supranational political units are spatially planned, governed and developed. In this book, Sami Moisio delves deeply into the links between the knowledge-based economy and geopolitics, examining a wide range of themes, including city geopolitics and the university as a geopolitical site. Overall, this work shows that knowledge-based "economization" can be understood as a geopolitical process that produces territories of wealth, security, power and belonging. This book will prove enlightening to students, researchers and policymakers in the fields of human geography, urban studies, spatial planning, political science and international relations.

In What Sense a Geopolitical Knowledge-Based Economy?

“…Knowledge-based economization can be understood as proceeding through a set of strategic initiatives which include the tempting promise of limitless growth: an antidote to the various material and environmental limits to economic growth under Atlantic Fordism which had become obvious already in the 1980s. In this capacity, the discourses of knowledge-based economization are firmly bound to the ways in which capitalism has been represented since the 1990s as the only societal system capable of providing infinite growth and profit (Moisio 2018a).…”

“…The concept of the geopolitical subject therefore refers to an organized set of human figures, who are, from the perspective of political power, equipped with particular ideal skills, behaviors, orientations and "spatial mindsets" which can be harnessed in the production of territories of wealth and competition at the age of global competition. As such, a geopolitical analysis of knowledge-based economization seeks to understand the ways in which such economization involves manipulating and guiding bodies and lives spatially in the age of a conceived war over talent (Moisio, 2018a).…”

A tudás geopolitikája : A tu­dás­ala­pú gaz­da­ság ér­tel­me­zé­se geo­po­li­ti­ka kon­tex­tus­ban

“…Ilyen szempontból a klasszikus geopolitika a tizenkilencedik és huszadik századi ipari társadalom logikáját követi, amelyben a földrajzi terek és természeti erőforrások feletti kontroll az államközi versengés fő tényezője. Ezek végső soron a nemzetek gazdagságának, hatalmának, státuszának és biztonságának alappillérei (Moisio, 2018). Ezzel szemben egy tudásalapú gazdaságban, ahol a lényegi erőforrások közé tartozik a tudás, az innovációs készség és a humán tőke, a geopolitikai narratívának is egy ehhez idomuló felfogást kellene követnie.…”

“…A geopolitika tudásalapú társadalomhoz és gazdasághoz kapcsolódó értelmezésének fókusza szükségszerűen áthelyeződik az államokról a városi régiókra és terekre, a regi-onális hubokra, technológiai klaszterekre, csomópontokra és ezek globális versenyképességére (Moisio, 2018). A régiók azon képessége, hogy hatékonyan támogassák a lokális tanulási és innovációs kapacitások kialakulását és fejlődését, közvetlen versenyelőnyt jelent a nemzetközi gazdasági színtéren (MacKinnon et al, 2002).…”

Introduction to the Special Issue: Cities and Universities. Discourses, Spatialities, and Material Infrastructures of University‐Driven Urban Change

“…Some works have unpacked the capacity of universities to produce space by looking at their agency on a global scale (Kleibert et al 2021;Schulze 2021). HEIs have been framed as infrastructures of competitiveness (Moisio 2018), with successful universities becoming important attracting factors for a large portion of temporary urban inhabitants and dwellers. The rising importance of universities connected to their ability to act on a multiscalar level has fuelled the growth of coalitions of interests that emerge in relation to HE.…”